Heidegger "The Question Concerning Technology"

For November, we will discuss Heidegger's seminal essay "The Question Concerning Technology" at bar Boheme (wine bar located in the heart of Montrose). We'll be seated inside, in the small room next to the main bar, near the front entrance (on the right when you walk in).

Below is a link to the reading, followed by a description of the work:

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"Martin Heidegger's essay "The Question Concerning Technology" argues that the essence of technology is not technological itself, but a way of revealing the world, which he calls "enframing" (Gestell). This worldview reduces everything, including nature, to a "standing-reserve" (Bestand) of resources to be ordered and exploited, a process he terms "challenging-forth" (Herausfordern). The danger, for Heidegger, isn't technology itself, but that this enframing mindset blinds us to other ways of understanding, trapping us in a purely instrumental view of the world and ourselves, and preventing us from experiencing a more authentic truth.

The question concerning technology is a question raised on all sides and always with a sense of urgency. On it hinges nothing less than the survival of the human species and the planet earth. Yet the question is usually posed within a purely technical framework as one to be debated solely by technicians. Technological problems, we say, require technological solutions which no layman can fashion or fathom. Just as there are 'technical philosophical' questions which none but philosophers can answer, so there are 'technical technological' problems that the philosopher had best let alone. Heidegger suggests that purely technical modes of discussion and thought do not suit it. For the essence of technology is ultimately a way of revealing the totality of beings. As a way of revealing, it is pervasive and fundamental in our time, so much so that we cannot "opt for" technology or "opt out" of it. The advent of technology is something destined or sent our way long before the eighteenth century. One of Heidegger's most daring theses is that the essence of technology is prior to, and by no means a consequence of, the Scientific Revolution."